Horowitz Disguises Racism as ‘Awareness’

By Nathan Tumazi

Last week marked the beginning of a social and political wave of hatred and racist xenophobia emanating from the violent rhetoric of conservative students, politicians and academics everywhere. The perpetrator responsible for what was called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” is David Horowitz.

For those not familiar with Horowitz, a little background information: Horowitz began as a campus leftist and radical activist for peace, truth, justice and equality at Colombia University and UC Berkeley, but has since joined the right wing and led a nationwide backlash against all of those things. His about-face came in 1985, and he hasn’t stopped bashing anyone who speaks for peace, truth, justice and equality since.

His Aug. 16, 1999 column for Salon.com entitled “Guns Don’t Kill Black People, Other Blacks Do,” is only a sample of his call to arms for all conservatives, angry or not, to return American universities to their religious and white supremacist origins. In 2001, Horowitz again stirred controversy when he ran vicious advertisements in college newspapers across the country titled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea and Racist Too.” The full-page ads were met with a mild response from conservative students and hurt and frustration from outraged minority students whose ancestors certainly did not benefit from slavery, no matter how much Horowitz may claim they did. Horowitz reacted to the minority students by claiming an “assault on free speech” by leftist students.

Horowitz was again called out for his xenophobia and blatant discriminatory rhetoric for a Jan. 26, 2005 posting on the “History News Network” Web site about “Why I Am Not Celebrating” the 90th birthday of esteemed African-American historian John Hope Franklin. Franklin is the James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and chairman of former President Bill Clinton’s commission on race. In the article, Horowitz launched into an attack on Franklin and then proceeded to claim that “free blacks and the free descendants of blacks … benefited from slavery.” Horowitz’s anger and bitterness against blacks is only outdone by his relentless hatred of Muslims, anyone who doesn’t have a penis, non-heterosexuals and the working and poor classes.

Unfortunately, Horowitz is not alone. Ann Coulter, who was scheduled on her Web site to appear at UC Irvine for “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch, Bryan Caplan, Beverly LaHaye and Tom Monaghan all lent their money, airtime and speech to Horowitz’s campaign to destroy Islam without paying the slightest attention to the failures of any other religion, especially Christianity.

Horowitz has claimed on his Web site that “during the week of Oct. 22 to 26, 2007, the nation will be rocked by the biggest conservative campus protest ever—Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, a wake-up call for Americans on 200 university and college campuses.” We can only begin to understand the fear and hatred espoused by Horowitz and many other conservatives through a process of deconstruction.

First, Islam has its failings, like all religions do, but it is practiced by nearly one billion people who do not seek to harm or kill or maim; most are what we consider moderate and are not represented by the actions of a few extremists. Second, fascism is a state-sponsored ideology that considers the authority of a particular state to be superior to the individual; it has a specific historical context that has no associations with Islam. For example, Mussolini defined fascism as a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. By linking the two words together, Horowitz and his equally angry conservative colleagues psychologically confuse uninformed young students into thinking that Islam is somehow associated with a political movement which, ironically, is associated with the right-wing, of which Horowitz is a part.

One may say, then, that Horowitz is a fascist, but this would only stoke his fire of hatred and give him the attention he wants. On a personal note, I have to ask, as I think we all should be asking ourselves, “Why is this neoconservative movement happening at a time when what we need is understanding and peace instead of more fragmentation of American university political action?” As globalization creates less and less personal identity, and forces humans everywhere to adapt to “others” never before encountered in such a close contextual framework, anger and hatred are becoming more prevalent across university campuses. I was recently at an Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists club meeting where there was no consensus as to what was to be done about the ridiculously titled “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” campaign.

For those of us still committed to defending peace, truth, justice and equality there is much uniting to be done. We need to come together and demand that the racist hate of last week’s campaign be forced off our campus. Racism and ethnocentric hate should not be part of the college experience. We, as students, need to sit-out of classes and march Ring Mall all this week to end this assault on reason.

Nathan Tumazi is a third-year international studies major.

URL: http://www.newuniversity.org/showArticle.php?id=6200